How Alumnus Martin Horstman Turned Creativity Into a Career

When Martin Horstman ’06 started building out technology to make his own video games during his senior year at Stony Brook, he never imagined it would lead to a successful video game-making platform geared toward children. And now that platform, Pixicade, has gone global.

As an applied mathematics and statistics major, with a minor in computer science in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Horstman got into game programming because of Professor Richard McKenna, but not for the reasons you may think. He wanted to take McKenna’s game programming class during his junior year but wasn’t eligible because he didn’t have the prerequisites. “I really wanted to learn all about it, so I bought the book they used in class, and I read it end to end to teach myself computer science, data and structure,” Horstman said. “That was really the push that set off my career path in programming.” Horstman was eventually able to take McKenna’s class.

Using those skills, he and his art teacher wife, Alysha, developed Pixicade, a platform that takes drawings and turns them into a video game. Earlier this year, Abacus Brands acquired Pixicade, which will allow the digital game platform to be distributed to a wider market. Horstman will remain chief technology officer and run operations, while his team, made up of other Stony Brook alumni, will continue to develop the software.

Read a Q&A with Horstman at Stony Brook Matters, where he discusses how his time at Stony Brook shaped his career and what inspired him and Alysha to develop Pixicade.